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certain phrases preventing posting? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by TheBananaKing@lemmy.world to c/lemmy_support@lemmy.ml
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ETA for fuck's sake, even this post had to be censored down to go through. It took about 15 attempts.

A few times recently I've had posts refuse to go through with great big 'you've been blocked!' banners.

It seems to be very sensitive to mentions of being mean to people, not advocacy, just mentioning the existence of certain topics, and it seems to be way too hair-triggered.

I just now tried to post about the ethics of meat consumption, and why people see certain aspects as more troubling than others. Certainly nothing explicit or provocative, just the difference in perception between harvesting meat and deliberate unkindess - as abstract concepts.

I refuse to do the stupid zoomer thing of cens*ring words with numbers and punctuation, and frankly I shouldn't have to.

I'm not sure how you're meant to be able to have a sane conversation about ethics or politics if you're not allowed to mention people being mean. God knows what would happen if someone tried to report actions perpetrated in an akka-akka-kablooey-competition zone.

Could someone maybe take a look at the settings, because jesus christ.

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[-] maegul@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago

All I’m aware of is a hardcoded racial slur filter, which IMO isn’t the worst idea for a platform like this. Personally, I can’t tell what words are causing problems for you. You could take a screenshot of the text if you wanted to discuss the efficacy of the filter.

Honestly, for me, since Jan this year, this is the first time I’ve heard of anyone having any trouble. I’m genuinely curious what’s triggering the filters.

[-] wahming@monyet.cc 9 points 1 year ago

Lemmy.ml has extensive word censoring. It's at the instance level, not community level.

[-] maegul@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Extensive? Do you have any more details or sources for that?

I’ve just checked the hard coded slur filter and it’s fairly limited and covers only the usual suspects.

To illustrate, some terms that should pass: cunt, fuck face, shit head.

[-] can@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

You can say cunt but not a female dog?

[-] maegul@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well I’d certainly say that the b word is more of a gendered pejorative than cunt, which would be the point. Thought, obviously the c word can be gendered too, depending on where you are and usage (I’m used to it being fairly neutral though blindly offensive).

[-] wahming@monyet.cc 2 points 1 year ago

I'm pretty sure the other instances don't have a slur filter

[-] maegul@lemmy.ml -1 points 1 year ago

Having a filter at all is rather different from having extensive word censoring. Do you think having a filter at all is "extensive"? I can understand the reflex against it, but in the end, for indie social media with limited resources, putting a basic hardcoded prevention right in the software seems like a pretty natural and easy to implement measure.

The other instances may or may not have the filter, I don't know ... but last I checked the filter is more or less baked into the software (as rust is compiled), which would require recompiling from source to remove, something which I bet a number of instances don't bother with ... though this could be very wrong.

[-] wahming@monyet.cc 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/622

From the github discussion it's an optional feature. See last message

The reason why I think word filters are dumb is evidenced by the reason this discussion started. They randomly censor stuff with no consideration for context or even if the meaning is the same. If widespread, any bad actor can remove or replace random letters to avoid them. And if you happen to use other languages, there's a good chance you'll run into random blocked messages for no good reason.

[-] maegul@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Ah right ... thanks! ... I'd missed that.

I'm aware of all the issues a simple filter can have, as you describe. My argument is that for an indie social media platform, where high quality and quick moderation is by no means guaranteed, such a filter would generally be worth it.

[-] TheBananaKing@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago

The most poitical instance prevents you from even referring to the reasons you need politics? Amazing!

[-] Mojave@lemmy.world -4 points 1 year ago

Yeah, Communists are not the smartest

[-] gabe@literature.cafe 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Look, it is extremely likely that there a few things potentially going on here:

  1. Posts are not federating across your instance right now properly due to lemmy.world having issues.
  2. You may have been banned from that community you are trying to post in.
  3. There may be word triggers that have been added to lemmy.world as a safety measure due to recent attacks.
  4. Or potentially the person you are responding to blocked you, unsure how that functions fully.
  5. You may be rate limited.
[-] gabe@literature.cafe 3 points 1 year ago

You can view the community's modlog you are trying to post to see if you have been banned. What community are you trying to post in?

[-] TheBananaKing@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

This one. This very thread took about 15 goes to post.

[-] gabe@literature.cafe 8 points 1 year ago

Lemmy.ml has a slur filter and might be limiting whatever the hell you're trying to say, regardless. Chill.

[-] TheBananaKing@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Even this reponse needs rephrasing all to hell. Come on. Are you telling me I can't use the word meaning the main part of an article? The part between your neck and your legs, the HTML element where the visible part of the page goes. Mustn't say it. Seriously. What a freaking clown show.

1: nope. It's repeatable and predictable, instant nope page or success, depending on content.

2: Nope. I managed to post this here, but only after removing certain words about being mean, rhyming with violets and calm.

3: I don't doubt it, but unless the software is running on Eddie from HHGTTG, I don't see how mentioning the topics could contribute to issues.

4: Nope, this very item was getting noped, and the post wasn't responding to an individual.

5: nope, see points 1 and 4.

[-] bobdowl@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

You mean "body"? Seems to work fine.

[-] TheBananaKing@lemmy.world -4 points 1 year ago

Meh, I ended up having to snip a sentence at a time, and that was the only word I could see that was remotely interesting. I'm not going to binary-search the whole thing to check :D

[-] Swyperider@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago

Testing to see if I can post "body" as well.

[-] zoe@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

chill, its lemmy.ml that u r trying to post in! i get errors from it all the time

[-] silas@programming.dev 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Each instance has different word filters, thus each community has different filters depending on the instance it’s on. What community were you trying to post on?

For example, you can find the word filter that lemmy.ml uses somewhere on this page here: lemmy.ml/api/v3/site

It’s kinda messy, but it’s after/under “slur_filter_regex” and it’s written in a format called RegEx

this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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